WEEK TWELVE

Division of Labor in households

Comparing the experience I had as a child when we were going up in the 70s with our parents, with what is going on now in my family, so much has change in the way work is being distributed within each family. I might be mistaking, maybe the differences exist but between the developed and less developed world since I grew up in Africa. When we were growing up, my dad’s responsibility in the family was only to go out and fetch money. He was the one paying for our tuition in schools. In fact, any thing that concerns finances, he was the one handling them. My dad was like our family treasury. Mowing the lawn was my dad’s responsibility because in my country, women do not feel comfortable mowing the lawn. So, he did not have any option when it comes to mowing the lawn.

When it comes to my mother, she was responsible for things like cleaning the house, cooking, attaining conferences in our schools, helping in our home work and any other house chore. My mother was also the one doing all the shopping for the house. She was like the house manager because she was managing everything in the house. In fact, that was the tradition by then that was being followed by every household in my country.

When I came to America, I discovered that the house chores are being distributed almost equally within each family. For example, in my family when I am at work, my husband takes care of anything that is supposed to be done at home. He prepares breakfast for the kids on the days that I have to leave the house early and after that, he gets them ready for school and if the house needs some cleaning, he will go ahead and do the house cleaning. It goes the same for shopping. Any of us will shop at anytime we are chanced to shop. There is nothing that is supposed to be done specifically by a particular person. When it comes to the payment of bills, we pay according to what you are earning. Since I am in school and I don’t work that much, I contribute the least when it comes to paying bills.

There are some of the things that we do like cleaning the bathrooms, straightening up and many others that we don’t look at them as work. When I looked at the list of things that are being done in our households after work, I discovered that a lot is being put in second shift without us realizing .In this case, Single parents I assume most be going through tough times.